BT Wants Cash For iPlayer, Video Bandwidth 229
eldavojohn writes "British Telecom is asking for more money for the bandwidth that iPlayer and video streaming sites eat up. The BBC's Tech Editor is claiming that 'Now Britain's biggest internet service provider is making it clear that, in a cut-throat broadband market, something is going to have to give — and net neutrality may have to be chucked overboard.' The BBC and BT are currently already in talks over how to get past this together. This might sound like a familiar battle from over a year ago."
That's the way BT is (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't forget that BT is the incumbent telecoms operator in the UK - they were originally a state owned monopoly and got most of their infrastructure in place using taxpayers' money.
These are the same guys that were holding back broadband in the UK a couple of years (all the while broadband adoption in the rest of Europe was taking of like crazy) ago until laws were passed forcing them to allow other ISPs to use their lines. Even now, they will still make it extra hard to use ISPs other than themselves.
They currently censor their customers connection using the list from the Internet Watch Foundation (a state controlled quango) - the same guys that were blocking Wikipedia some months ago - and will voluntarily give contact data for an IP address to any "content owner" who asks for it.
These guys are not the good guys and they haven't been so for many years now.
Re:Solution (Score:5, Interesting)
Nice idea, but the BBC is a public service and would probably be violating parts of its charter by doing this.
BT should paying the BBC (Score:4, Interesting)
BT is the principal landline telecommunications supplier in the UK. Most of their income is generated from being a wholesale infrastructure supplier, so I don't understand why there is a "bandwidth delivery problem". Since BT must have the cheapest cost of getting bandwidth from one location in the UK to their customer base. BT can well afford to put multiple 10GbE into LINX and/or BBC directly and connect 1GbE into every local exchange/Point-of-Presence.
So the question has to be asked, what specific thing is it that stops these things from taking place ? Could is be that upgrading equipment at both ends of a fiber optic medium might increase bandwidth by 10 fold but decrease the comodity value of that same bandwidth by 8 fold. Which also has the effect of decreasing the comodity value of all other bandwidth products a telco has for sale. Net result is less profit.
BT inherited their network from the government when it was the "GPO", maybe it is time for the GPO to come back so that the monopoly position BT has is rebalanced against the technological improvements of the past 10 years that a state owned entity could push forward. Some people in the UK don't like privatisation and other people don't like nationalisation, but I say we should have both (at least 2 companies) and let the customer spend their money with the company who best serves their interests.
It is my understanding that when you are a content supplier, people pay you to get connected to you, since you have the content that your "consumers" are paying you to get to. Within reasons the cost of bandwidth is free to the BBC (over and above some ~£million costs to setup, own and manage). Internet bandwidth at neutral exchanges must look pretty cheap compared to satellite video bandwidth needed for a world leading TV, radio, news and media organisation. The money for connectivity flows in that direction, consumer to producer.
Re:Non-issue (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Non-issue (Score:4, Interesting)
This shouldn't be an issue at all; the BBC's ISP should be charging them a fortune for their high bandwidth use and then the squabble is between ISPs for peering costs. Also BT should be charging by the gigabyte instead of offering unrealistic "unlimited" packages that cause problems when people actually use their bandwidth.
Both of these already take place more or less; the BBC does pay an ungodly amount for bandwidth already.
BT's packages also have a 40GB soft limit in their FUP - virtually no british home user ADSL ISPs offer a truly unlimited service any more, you need to get a business class ADSL account for £80-100 a month or so.
BT also throttle video streaming down to 750Kb/s in peak periods on the standard packages, so users already have limited access to the higher quality streams on iplayer in the evening with BT, something a number of other ISPs have been using lately in their adverts.
So not only are the BBC paying for their bandwidth, and users are paying through the nose for a pretty limited service, BT now want to double dip and charge twice for the same content, with the BBC picking up the bill instead of the customers.
Must be good business when you're an ex-public service monopoly and still the largest ISP, and can get away with bullshit like this.
Pay for your own mistakes! (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Non-issue (Score:4, Interesting)
The BBC are peered with every UK ISP. If you don't peer with the BBC you don't get any content at all. The BBC doesn't pay for bandwidth at all.
Historically the ISPs have concluded that in the UK your broadband should come with access to the BBC.
It's essentially going to be a peering spat, BT may pull peering from the BBC and try to get the BBC to pay. The BBC will cut off access to all streaming services if they do it. BTs customers will flee.
If the BBC are really nasty, I bet they could get a superb deal for streaming from Sprint who transit BT and nail BT for a huge transit bill for delivering the content.
The invasion of the paid-for content... (Score:5, Interesting)
Unfortunately we have different communication technologies overlapping here, each with its traditional pricing structure. They don't fit.
The Internet has always been free to the end-user, thanks to the generosity (and perhaps intelligent self-interest) of parties like the US federal government, owners of the many servers that forward packets to us all, and - let's not forget - even telcos. Where I live, in southern England, I can buy ISP service for about $20/month upwards. That gets me continuous Internet access using ADSL, over a telephone wire designed for speech only, with a maximum bandwidth of about 2Mbps (because I live 3 miles from the exchange). On a good day I might get 2.8 Mbps, on a bad day (and perhaps due to contention) down around 1.5 or even less.
Now this is perfectly adequate for almost everything I want to do. I use email (and have since 1980); download with ftp; browse the Web; and other such traditional activities. The only time I bump my head on the ceiling is when I have to download a really big file, or (occasionally) watch some streaming video that I can't download in its entirety first.
Where it breaks down completely, of course, is if I want to download (or worse stream) movies, watch live sporting events in full glorious technicolour on a large screen without graininess or intermittent motion; or watch TV. That's because the Internet was never intended for those activities, most of which are better adapted to the plain ol' steam TV set (complemented by a video player, DVD player, etc.) Why on earth would thousands (potentially millions) of individuals download high-bandwidth material over separate, contending, low-bandwidth links, when much of that same material is freely broadcast through the air they breathe? It doesn't make very good engineering sense. More to the point, it doesn't make good economic or business sense. Movies, TV, sport, music and other live entertainment have traditionally been things you had to pay for - whether by buying a ticket, subscribing, or just watching tedious commercials.
AFAIAC, the really important aspect of this whole thing is that the Internet itself should remain free - as in speech and as in beer (apart from content-neutral ISP fees). Unfortunately, there are pople like this http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=19552&tag=nl.e539 [zdnet.com] who reckon otherwise. We have got to make sure they don't get their way.
Re:Non-issue (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Solution (Score:4, Interesting)
As the iplayer is not currently covered by the licence fee (i.e. you don't need a TV licence just to watch the iplayer if you have no TV) they should be ok to not provide iplayer service to everyone, such as BT customers - after all, many people can't get a fast enough connection, or even any connection to watch what limited selection of content is available via iplayer at the moment.
But don't cut BT users off from the BBC; redirect them to a page saying 'due to BT not wishing to let you visit us without being paid extra, we've had to stop BT customers like yourself watching TV via the iplayer service for free. You may wish to find an ISP that includes iplayer access as part of their broadband packages.'
The cherry would be including links and switching instructions, but I suspect that would be seen as commercial advertising, which is against the charter.